Since the launch of Tesla cars, which have revolutionised the car industry, Elon Musk has turned its attention and started conquering other sectors. With around 6,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, Musk has also successfully breached into the telecommunications industry. And, with 15 successful SpaceX crewed flights to space since 2020 and the Starship rocket chosen by NASA to take astronauts to the Moon in 2026, for the first time since 1972, for the Artemis III mission, Musk is well entangled in the space travel sector as well.
Besides ambitions of reaching Mars, first in an unmanned mission in 2026 and then taking humans to the Red Planet by the end of the decade, Musk plans to make use of his rocket on Earth just as much as in outer space. Designed to be fully reusable, which, at the time of its completion, was thought would revolutionise space travel, Starship could, according to the CEO, transport people on Earth, reaching any city in the world in less than an hour.
A video released by SpaceX on youtube in 2017, almost 6 years before the rocket even had its first test flight, has been resurfacing on social media and, with the re-election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, people are convinced the project will soon be approved for Earth transportation, with Musk himself replying to a post on X “This is now possible”.
The video shows how passengers would be taken by boat to a floating launch pad. Soon after take-off, the Super Heavy, which is used as a first stage for the launch, breaks off from the Starship and returns to the base, while the latter continues to its destination. Capable of reaching speeds of up to 27,000 km/h, it would drastically reduce flight times compared to commercial aircraft, that have a cruising speed of between 880 and 926 km/h.
According to the SpaceX website, most destinations would be reachable in about 30 minutes and flying between any two cities in the world would be guaranteed to take less than an hour. For comparison, flying 9,648 km from London to Hong Kong would only take 34 minutes aboard the Starship rather than 11 hours and 50 minutes.
Weather or not the Trump administration will indeed lift all tape for Musk remains to be seen, but the billionaire has been one of the driving forces behind the President’s second win and was also promised a central, yet to be determined, role in the upcoming Administration.
